Page 137 of Prince of Masks
My mouth thins, lips sucked inwards.
By the looseness of Teddy’s lips, I suspect Eric has been hush hush about our fuck in the park—and everything leading up to it.
“Hold that thought, I’m gonna throw up,” he heaves out the words that have me cringing back into the table.
I watch, cowered, as he staggers into the bushes.
Before the first retch can hit him, I’ve gripped my untouched plate and rushed off to the steps descending into the Green Carpet, the perfectly neat strip of green grass that stretches hundreds of metres down the gardens, and is lined by delicately, hand-sculpted statues.
Teddy is on his own.
I walk the length of the Green Carpet in search of some solitude.
I pass the trees, the hedges, the stone sculptures, and I walk the long path to the Apollo Fountain where gold statues protrude from the calm water.
I perch on the stone border of the fountain.
The graze of my fingertip along the doughnut is muted and distracted.
I pinch the corner of a triangular toasted sandwich. I bring it to my parting lips, but my eyes are hooked on the curves and grooves of the gilded statues, and my mind is arched all the way back at the South Parterre left behind.
The breath that unribbons from me is glazed with disappointment. That’s all it is, all I feel.
No rage, no hurt, not even the desperation to throw myself into the crowds up there, and get to work luring Eric back to me, all while battling Father to let me have the gentry witch for a husband.
The whole thing is… over.
It’s over.
I fought a battle—Father was orchestrating a war, and Eric had his own alliances overlapping with mine.
I am defeated.
I am betrothed.
Promised to a stranger, a round man with a moustache and a top hat.
My Mr Monopoly.
I turn my cheek to the statues and look up the long pathways to the palace.
Shadows lurk on the path, a pair slipping away together into the secrecy of the tall trees.
Is Mr Monopoly up there?
Did he watch my entrance, listen to the introduction, knowing I am his? Knowing my father has sold me to him?
My shoulders sag. The shift of posture has my dress ruffling, the layers of wispy skirts, the hard bodice, it’s all feeling too much like a prison wrapped around my body.
There is a distant hum of envy in me, not quite reaching me through the daze settled over me, a numbness, faint. Yet I sense the envy in me all the same.
Those silhouettes moving through the Green Carpet, sneaking behind statues and into the lining trees, some strolling down the paths, meandering.
Most don’t seem to have a care in the world.
Or all their cares have been tended to, nurtured, not like mine.
I lean over the plate and finish the four corners of the toasted sandwich. I’m dusting my fingertips off on a cloth napkin, watching those shadows on the Green Carpet, when I spot a single silhouette.
